1/2 CDC Director Robert Redfield admitted some Americans who seemingly died from influenza were tested positive for novel #coronavirus in the posthumous diagnosis, during the House Oversight Committee Wednesday. #COVID19pic.twitter.com/vYNZRFPWo3

2/2 CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation! pic.twitter.com/vYNZRFPWo3

China government spokesman says U.S. army might have bought virus to China

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian wrote on his Twitter account on Thursday that the U.S. military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak.

“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao tweeted in English.

China, pushing conspiracy theory, accuses US Army of bringing coronavirus to Wuhan

A spokesman for the Chinese government on Thursday promoted a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was brought to the city of Wuhan by the U.S. military.

“It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” said Zhao Lijian, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Business Insider reported.

The comment, an alternate explanation Beijing is pushing amid global criticism of the country’s failure to mitigate the virus, comes as the Chinese government has increasingly disputed widespread international reporting that the virus was first detected in Wuhan.

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The conspiracy theory, which has recently gained steam in China, instead suggests the virus was brought to the country in 2019 by U.S. athletes participating in the Military World Games that were held in Wuhan.

Zhao pointed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield’s acknowledgement in congressional testimony Wednesday that some Americans who appeared to have died from the flu may have died from the virus due to a lack of testing.

“What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao said in a series of tweets.

2/2 CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation! pic.twitter.com/vYNZRFPWo3

Redfield did not say the virus had originated in the U.S. in his remarks before Congress.

In comments at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien described China’s response to the virus as a cover up, saying Beijing’s response had cost the international community months that could have been used to prepare for the coronavirus.

“Unfortunately, rather than use best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up,” O’Brien said Wednesday. “There’s lots of open source reporting from Chinese nationals that the doctors involved were either silenced or put in isolation … so the word of this virus could not get out.”

In the meantime, several Republican lawmakers have referred to the illness as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus.”

Redfield has pushed back against that characterization, as has Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), the vice chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. She said such terminology only “reinforces the disparaging and negative stereotypes of Asian Americans.”

Coronavirus conspiracy theory that Covid-19 originated in US spreading in China

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said “no conclusion has been reached yet on the origin of the virus, as relevant tracing work is still underway”

A conspiracy theory that the coronavirus originated in the US is spreading through China, fuelled by officials and a video from an interview with Centres for Disease Control (CDC) director Robert Redfield.

In a video posted by the People’s Daily Mr Redfield suggests that some Americans who were previously thought to have died of influenza could have actually died from Covid-19.

When asked whether deaths in the US may have been wrongly attributed to influenza he replied: “Some cases have been actually diagnosed that way in the United States today.

The video has reportedly sparked an online conspiracy theory pushed by Chinese officials that Covid-19 did not originate in China.

The Guardianreports that the Chinese microblog Weibo has seen a swell in social media engagement with the theory and the clip became one of the most popular topics on the site on Thursday.

According to the report, one commenter said: “The US has finally acknowledged that among those who had died of the influenza previously were cases of the coronavirus. The true source of the virus was the US!”

After the video emerged on Thursday a Chinese government spokesperson suggested that the US Army could be responsible for bringing the new coronavirus to China.

Lijian Zhao alleged in a tweet that read in part “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe(s) us an explanation!”

Authorities have been implying the virus could have originated overseas weeks before the clip found traction on social media.

A firebrand Chinese spokesperson implies the U.S. “army” may have brought the virus to China.

As the Chinese government has gotten a grip on its breakout of the 2019 coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, internal narratives have been shifting. Having initially declared a “people’s war” on the disease, Chinese President Xi Jinping, clad in a facemask, went to Wuhan this week— the city where the virus, known as SARS-nCoV-2, is thought to have had its zoonotic genesis.

Xi’s visit was seen as a victory lap: a moment for him, as commander-in-chief, to indicate to the Chinese people that the outbreak had been brought under control. It also coincided largely with the moment that the rest of the world — especially Europe and the United States — began to recognize the gravity of the COVID-19 situation. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization moved to officially dub COVID-19 a pandemic.

In the weeks preceding Xi’s moment in Wuhan, official Chinese propaganda channels had started to raise the notion that the disease may not have originated within China. On February 27, Zhong Nashan, a Chinese scientist involved in Beijing’s national response, suggested the following: “Though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China.”

On Thursday, Lijian Zhao, an official spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, took to Twitter to insinuate that “it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” Zhao, no stranger to Twitter controversy, added that the United States should “be transparent” and “make public your date.” The “US owe us an explanation,” he added.

That message was then taken up by Chinese diplomats overseas. For example, the Chinese ambassador to South Africa, repeated that line. Messaging underplaying the suspected zoonotic origins of the disease in China’s Hubei province were combined with a celebration of China’s national response and its implications for the world: “China’s endeavor to combating the epidemic has bought time for int’l preparedness,” the Chinese foreign ministry suggested this week.

All of this, culminated in Zhao’s implication of U.S. military involvement: a spectacular claim for an official government spokesperson.

Zhao’s Twitter profile, unlike that of several other national spokespersons on the platform, does not indicate that he is tweeting in a personal capacity. He used this account extensively to build a following when he was posted to Pakistan as the deputy chief of mission for the Chinese embassy there.

Now, as national spokesperson, for him to insinuate that the United States military had a role in bringing COVID-19 to Wuhan raises an uncomfortable specter for U.S.-China relations. It mirrors the arguments raised by some in the United States — including prominent lawmakers — that SARS-nCoV-2 might have been bioengineered (a proposition for which no evidence exists and one that is also logically unsound).

The COVID-19 pandemic is just starting, but it’s starting to look as if this will turn into a major sore point between the United States and China. In particular, as China’s national response begins to take effect and the U.S. public health crisis appears to be ramping up, Beijing’s propaganda blitz may only grow more intense. The effects on U.S.-China relations are unlikely to be positive.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman pushes coronavirus conspiracy theory that the US Army ‘brought the epidemic to Wuhan

A Chinese government spokesman said on Thursday that the US Army may have “brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” appearing to push a popular coronavirus conspiracy theory in China.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called attention to a comment on Wednesday from Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledging that some Americans who were said to have died from influenza may have actually died from COVID-19.

“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected?” Zhao wrote on Twitter. “What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”

In a short thread on Twitter — a social-media platform that’s inaccessible in China — Zhao demanded to know how many of the millions of infections and thousands of deaths during the latest flu season were actually related to COVID-19.

The coronavirus first appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, and since then, the pandemic has claimed the lives of thousands of people, mostly in China.

As China has faced criticism, Chinese authorities have pushed back, suggesting that the virus may have originated somewhere else. Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese epidemiologist, said in late February that “though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China.”

The Trump administration has laid the blame firmly at China’s feet. “Unfortunately, rather than using best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up,” the White House national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, told reporters on Wednesday.

US military may have brought coronavirus to Wuhan, says China in war of words with US

BEIJING (REUTERS) – A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry suggested on Thursday (March 12) that the US military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak, doubling down on a war of words with Washington.

China has taken great offence at comments by US officials accusing it of being slow to react to the virus, first detected in Wuhan late last year, and of not being sufficiently transparent.

On Wednesday, US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the speed of China’s reaction to the emergence of the coronavirus had probably cost the world two months when it could have been preparing for the outbreak.

In a strongly worded tweet, written in English on his verified Twitter account, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said it was the United States that lacked transparency.

“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao wrote.

Zhao, an avid and often combative Twitter user, did not offer any evidence for his suggestion that the US military might be to blame for the outbreak in China.

Earlier on Thursday, his fellow ministry spokesman Geng Shuang criticised US officials for “immoral and irresponsible” comments that blamed Beijing’s response to the coronavirus for worsening the global impact of the pandemic.

Asked about O’Brien’s comments, Geng told a daily news briefing in Beijing that such remarks by US officials would not help US epidemic efforts.

China’s efforts to slow the spread had bought the world time to prepare against the epidemic, he added.

“We wish that a few officials in the US would at this time concentrate their energy on responding to the virus and promoting cooperation, and not on shifting the blame to China.”

FIRM MEASURES

The coronavirus emerged in December in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province, where around two-thirds of global cases so far have been recorded. But in recent weeks the vast majority of new cases have been outside China.

The Chinese authorities credit firm measures they took in January and February, including a near total shutdown of Hubei, for preventing outbreaks in other Chinese cities on the scale of Wuhan and slowing the spread abroad.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has pointed to a decision to limit air travel from China at the end of January to fend off criticism that it responded too slowly to the disease. Critics say Trump played down the disease in public and the federal government was slow to roll out tests.

“Unfortunately, rather than using best practices, this outbreak in Wuhan was covered up,” Trump’s national security advisor O’Brien said during a think-tank appearance on Wednesday.

“It probably cost the world community two months to respond,” during which “we could have dramatically curtailed what happened both in China and what’s now happening across the world”, he said.

More than 119,100 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus across the world and 4,298 have died, the vast majority in China, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has 975 cases and 30 people have died.

“We have done a good job responding to it but … the way that this started out in China, and the way it was handled from the outset, was not right,” said O’Brien.

Chinese official blames coronavirus outbreak on US military

A Chinese government spokesman has tried to blame the US army for the deadly coronavirus outbreak, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian claimed Thursday that the US military might have brought the COVID-19 virus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak emerged in December.

“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao tweeted in English in one of a series of tweets critical of the US.

The comments appear to be retaliation in a war of words with Washington. Chinese government officials bristled when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” and decried when President Trump called it a “foreign virus” that started “in China.”

The contagious illness has now infected more than 125,000 people in at least 118 countries and territories, according to figures from the WHO Thursday afternoon.

China Government Spokesman Says U.S. Army Might Have Brought Virus to China

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian wrote on his Twitter account on Thursday that the U.S. military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak.

“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao tweeted in English.